


The Problem with Brick Walls

by pensiveFabulist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Short, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-28 06:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensiveFabulist/pseuds/pensiveFabulist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere deep down, from the very start, Dirk knew this is what it would come to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Problem with Brick Walls

GT: And so as much as id like to accept your sincere display of affections  
GT: The fact is, my good fellow, you see  
GT: *wipes forehead with handkerchief*  
GT: I am not a homosexual.   
TT: …   
GT: I'm so sorry.   
timeausTestified [TT] ceased pestering golgothasTerror [GT]

He knows better than to try reading something cheerful. He'll feel better for a little while, but at some point, he'll be forced to remember the things he's trying to forget, and he's tired of running. Instead, he pulls out a tragedy, and feels himself relax into the sprawl of words, letting someone else's pain replace his, allowing his feeling to meld with the great torrent of emotion the novel provokes. For a little while he can pretend that that terrible ache in his chest isn't because of him, that he hurts because of the story, not because he was too quick to give his heart away to someone who didn't want it.  
The way his eyes widened when he heard him say it--

But he isn't going to think about that, not yet. There will come a time when it all cools to the touch and he can comb through the memories one by one, isolating where it all went wrong. But that time is not now. 

He's always been a quick reader; it's part of the reason he loves the classics, because they come to him so effortlessly; deep down, he's always wanted to be different, to be special, to be better, and so of course he followed his talent to its natural conclusion. He finishes the first book in little under an hour and straightaway starts in on the second. By the time the sky starts to go dark, he's on his fifth, the floor behind him littered with discarded reading material, harvested and now useless to him, strewn alongside assorted metal parts from his latest project. Normally, mechanics came easily to him, but he's been stuck for a few days working in vain to get parts to fit together when they clearly won't, and he's finally abandoned the attempt. As a robosmith and engineer, he learned early on that trying to solve a problem the same way was a quick road to frustration. Square pegs don't fit into round holes. There are some things in this world as undeniable incompatible as light and dark, as ice and fire, as height and depth, and no matter how many times, no matter how many goddamn fucking times he tries and tries, he knows, has always known, that he was bound to fail from the start. 

Boys don't like other boys.

And it's the saddest and sickest thing, too, that this, this, of all things is why his heart is being ripped from his chest and crushed underfoot. He wishes desperately that the reason was something more complex, more contrived. That it was his brusque replies, his unwillingness to show straightforward emotion, his reluctance to get close to people. That it was the distance between Houston and an island in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. That it was something he thought or did or said, instead of something he was. Because no matter how smart or together you are, no matter how much you have figured out, sometimes, sometimes, you're going to get screwed over and there's not going to be a damn thing you can do about it. 

Not a thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before Dirk/Jake became temporarily canon, so take this as a quick re-imagining of what could have been.


End file.
